Board aiming to cut overprescribing to older patients

The Southern District Health Board has put a lot of effort into reducing its rate of over-prescribing to older people, deputy commissioner Richard Thomson says.

Last year more than 40% of older people in the South were taking five or more long-term medications - the highest rate in the country. Mr Thomson hoped the situation had improved, but it was too soon to know.

The issue has been highlighted by the Health Quality and Safety Commission during Patient Safety Week.

The commission was particularly concerned by the ``triple-whammy'' - older people taking a potentially dangerous combination of medicines that could damage their kidneys.

On that measure, the southern board had the second-highest rate (4%).

The ``triple-whammy'' occurred when blood pressure/heart pills were combined with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers, and diuretics.

Mr Thomson said over-prescribing had been an obvious problem to target.

``If you've got more people than anywhere else in the country receiving multiple medications, you've got to be doing something that could be improved.

``One of the very early initiatives we took as a commissioner team was to agree to fund a number of community pharmacists to actually work, not dispensing pills but in reviewing the poly-pharmacy in the elderly and providing advice back to GPs.

``That's about a half a million [dollar] investment a year.''

He said the board had been aware of the problem for a long time.

``The view we took was that when people were on multiple medications [it] could contribute to increased confusion, increased side effects, and that would be one of the drivers for things like falls, and [hospital] admissions.''

He said it was not about reducing the drugs bill - many of the medications were cheap.

``The early signs are that it's been well received, but it's too early for us to say we are achieving the goal we set out to achieve,'' Mr Thomson said.